The Popculty Podcast
The Popculty Podcast
'Jessica Jones' Part 2: A.K.A. She Said "Smile"
In the second part of our Jessica Jones retrospective, sociologist/friend of the show Bethany digs into the series' queer subtext with me (#Trishica) and David Tennant as Kilgrave. We relive the life-giving season one finale (Jessica did that!) and the game-changing second season finale (Trish did that!). Special guest, author Reuben “Tihi” Hayslett, shares his own story about intimate partner violence in We Don’t Need Another Hero: How Netflix’s Jessica Jones Saved My Life.
Next time in our final JJ episode: Sallinger, Hellcat, and THAT series finale.
Please help us reach our Patreon goal, to keep this show going! Become a Supergirl-level patron or higher by May 15th, and get a signed copy of my new book Girl of Steel: Essays on Television's Supergirl and Fourth-Wave Feminism!
TRIGGER WARNINGS: General discussion of sexual assault and domestic abuse.
If you are quarantined with an abuser, or in a dangerous home situation, please reach out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline:
- @ndvh on Twitter
- CALL 1-800-799-7233
- TTY 1-800-787-3224
- Chat: thehotline.org
Explicit content: Some language throughout, brief sexual references.
Thank you to Reuben “Tihi” Hayslett for sharing his story with us. Check out his collection of short stories, Dark Corners.
Featured Interviews:
GoldDerby interview with Krysten Ritter
Cast interview with Entertainment Weekly
BUILD Series interview with Rachael Taylor and Krysten Ritter
Credits:
Jessica Jones main title written by Sean Callery; cover performed by L'Orchestra Cinematique. Check out more of their awesome covers on Youtube and their album Geek Tunes.
All series clips property of Marvel and ABC Studios.
Logo by Max Badger.
Follow Popculty on Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram for all the news and commentary on the underrepresented pop culture you care about!
Follow Popculty on Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram, and watch video episodes on our brand-new Youtube channel!
SJ: 0:10
Welcome back to The Popculty Podcast. I'm your host, SJ. How's everyone doing? The world's a little topsy-turvy these days. I hope you all are safe and well as you listen to this. First I want to apologize for having to take such a long break from the podcast. That wasn't planned, it was just kind of a snowball of life stuff, which obviously turned into, you know, global pandemic. So I got a bit caught up in that, found myself in a bit of a hot-spot and, uh, shit's been crazy. What can I say? But recently I have found that just throwing myself back into the work is really getting me through this. So that is what I'm doing. It's times like this when escapism and diversion and entertainment can be our saviors. We need them more than ever. So I'm gonna do everything I can to bring you more great discussions on the pop culture you love that is getting us through quarantines and crazy times. Before we jump back into our Jessica Jones convo, one big announcement at the top: The Popculty Pod has launched a patron drive to determine its future. We, and by 'we', I mean currently me, but hoping to be we, if this patron drive is successful. That's kind of the purpose of it. We're trying to get up to $250 a month through our Patreon. If we reach that goal, I'll be able to finally hire an assistant for the pod. I'm looking for a college student who's having a hard time right now, but who is really good at social media and promoting and editing and all these things that are really slowing me down. It's just not sustainable to run a podcast all by yourself - Anyone will tell you that. You really have to have a team, and I've kind of gone as far as I can go on my own. That's why I'm having such a hard time getting these episodes out. There's a backlog of content and I just can't push through it. So in the spirit of making this more of a team effort and getting you episodes more regularly, we really need to hit that $250 goal as soon as possible. The patron drive is going through May 15th, so please donate by then. We're already more than halfway there. We really just have to keep this momentum going. If everyone listening chipped in $2 we would easily make that goal. So I really need you guys' help to get us past that finish line. Click on the Patreon link in the shownotes or the 'support the show' link in Apple Podcasts. You can see all the tiers we have set up as well as the rewards that each tier gets you - Everything from on-air shoutouts to personalized TV recommendations. And for the next two weeks only, a special bonus offer: If you sign up at the Supergirl level or higher, I will send you a signed and personalized copy of a book I recently co-authored that was just released called Girl of Steel: Essays on Television's Supergirl and Fourth-Wave Feminism. I want to give a huge shoutout to those listeners who have already stepped up: Wayne, you rock buddy. Cat, I've gotten so many good pop culture tips from you. Kara, I really miss our TV nights. Charles, thank you for becoming my very first Supergirl level patron. Your book is coming at you! Aur, one of our very first supporters. And lastly, I want to shoutout my family - Mom, Dad, sis, Auntie Suzy, thank you all so much for supporting my work, my writing, giving me a place to stay... I wrote the chapter in the book on the importance of chosen family, but sometimes bio family really comes through for you, and you guys have. You too could get a little personal shoutout in the next episode, if you sign up at the Ms. Marvel level or higher. That's just $5 a month that goes directly to supporting the show and gets me closer to taking this thing to the next level. Together we got this, let's do it!
SJ: 3:44
All right, let's get back to my conversation with Bethany about Jessica Jones! Last time, we left off talking about the relationship between Jessica and Trish. This episode, we're gonna dig more into those nuances, before we talk about David Tennant as Kilgrave. Obviously, some trigger warnings for when we get to that part of the episode: we will be talking generally about abusive relationships and sexual assault. We'll end our season one discussion by hearing from a special guest and then get into season two a bit before we break for the final Part Three. Last thing before we jump in, you're gonna be hearing the word 'queer' a lot in the first part of our discussion, and I just want to give some contemporary context for that. For LGBT folks of previous generations, the word 'queer' was often used as a slur against them. My generation though, Millennials and Gen Z-ers, have really reclaimed that word as a great umbrella term to encompass the entire LGBTQIA+ spectrum. It's also really helpful for people who are still figuring out their sexuality, or who just don't want to be labeled as one thing, because we now understand that sexuality is fluid. The term has become more or less mainstream, and it's used by not only members of the LGBT+ community, but also by scholars and academics. Relevant to our discussion today, it can also just mean a general subversion of a heteronormative text. All right, here we go! Part two of Jessica Jones starts now.
SJ: 5:37
So I think it's worth mentioning at this point that a lot of people saw the relationship between Jessica and Trish as more than friends. They saw romantic undertones to that. And I have to say, looking back at season one in particular, there is an enormous amount of queer subtext going on. I was wondering if you picked up on that?
Bethany: 5:54
If you could just jog my memory with some of the examples? I think you've watched the first season more recently than I have.
SJ: 5:59
Well, right off the bat, their very first scene together on the balcony...
Trish: 6:04
You could have used the door.
Jessica: 6:05
I wasn't sure you'd answer. It's important.
Trish: 6:10
It must be.
Jessica: 6:12
It's, uh, for a case.
Trish: 6:15
Right, you became a private eye.
Jessica: 6:20
You've been keeping tabs on me?
Trish: 6:21
Making sure you weren't dead, since you never called.
Jessica: 6:26
I need money.
Trish: 6:31
Wow. Uh, I don't even know what to say.
Jessica: 6:35
It's important.
Trish: 6:36
You said. But I don't hear from you for months - six months, actually--
Jessica: 6:40
I needed breathing room.
Trish: 6:42
You shut me out. And now you show up here asking for money?
Jessica: 6:46
This was a bad idea.
Trish: 6:47
No, you talk to me! You tell me what the hell is so important.
SJ: 6:51
There's very much a... "je ne sais quoi" to the things they're talking about, the way that they are with each other... I was very much not alone in thinking that they were exes or had some type of romantic history. I saw a lot of reviewers who had only been given the first episode to screen writing articles like, "We may have gotten our first queer superhero!" And in fact, Krysten Ritter has said that she thought the exact same thing after she read the pilot. This is her talking to Gold Derby in June 2016.
Krysten Ritter: 7:22
I mean, there was some stuff that I worked on with a different thing in mind than... For example, I didn't know that Rachael Taylor's character, Trish, was going to end up being my sister. I knew there was, like, real history there. I actually couldn't tell if they maybe were lovers at one point, just because their relationship was so dynamic and complex and so real and so alive that I just felt like there had to be more there.
SJ: 7:51
So a lot of people read into that, including her. I remember the actress Chloe Grace-Moritz tweeting at Krysten Ritter, "So are Jessica and Trish gonna get together in season two?" (with the googly-eyes emoji). A lot of people were on board with this ship. It was almost mainstream within the fandom, because there's so much within the show that supports that reading of it - Everything from that first scene to their jealousy over each other's partners, and then the season one finale is pretty darn romantic, in my opinion. Telling the girl you love her and then killing the bad guy to save her? I mean, that's the typical hetero hero move at the end of every movie, right?
Bethany: 8:31
As she's falling mid-air.
SJ: 8:32
Exactly, right! All that was missing was Jess catching Trish falling off a building, Lois Lane style. [both laugh] And then there's even a lot of sexual undertones, especially in season one. The thing that always jumps out at me is how every time Trish is having sex with someone, Jessica either ends up physically or figuratively in the room, in a really obvious way.
Bethany: 0:00
[laughs] Right.
SJ: 8:56
For example, Simpson is going down on Jessica-- [record scratch] Or, sorry - Simpson is going down on Trish!
Bethany: 9:05
I was like, "Wait, I missed that episode!"
SJ: 9:05
Nope, that was a deleted scene! [both laugh] Simpson's going down on Trish and Jessica barges in. Or Trish and Simpson are having sex and Jessica calls and then Trish starts talking about her in bed. Or even in season two, when Trish and Malcolm are post-coitally laying in bed...
Malcolm: 9:22
Where are you?
Trish: 9:25
I'm right here.
Malcolm: 9:26
No, you're not.
Trish: 9:29
[sighs] I can't stop thinking about Jessica.
SJ: 9:32
Like, every single time! There seems to be some sort of insertion of that relationship into the bedroom [laughs], and it seems very deliberate. I don't see how you could do something like that, from a creative standpoint, without knowing how the scenes were coming off.
Bethany: 9:52
Yeah.
SJ: 9:53
Did you pick up on that? Do you remember that?
Bethany: 9:55
Yeah, now that you're mentioning it, I do. And I think maybe why I wasn't thinking as critically about it in that sense is because the show does a really interesting thing, playing with their relationship as siblings - especially in the first season when you understand that Trish is the adopted (whether that was official or not) sister of Jessica - there's a play on the incest taboo. 'The History of Sexuality' talks about how much of a taboo incest in any form is, but the fact that they're not actually related by blood kind of adds this extra dimension where they can play with that incest thing. Because you kind of ask yourself, "Is it incest?" Or, "Is it actually bad?"
SJ: 10:39
Right.
Bethany: 10:40
It seems like it's also playing with female intimacy, which I think is sometimes rightly and sometimes wrongly coded as being sexual, when it's actually just a different type of intimacy, you know?
SJ: 10:53
Yeah, for sure.
Bethany: 10:54
Or when you talk about gender differences, it is. And so I think that's kind of an interesting thing to push those boundaries: What is female intimacy without it being overtly or explicitly sexual? And then is it sort of queer? Is it romantic? Or is it just intimacy in a way that we're not used to being presented with? And I don't know the answer to that. I think it could be any or all of those things.
SJ: 11:20
Completely. That's kind of the other thing that I keep coming back to is that we were just so taken aback by this presentation of a relationship between two women that we had never seen before, right? And that's exactly how Krysten Ritter talks about it, that's how Rachael Taylor talks about it in one of their very first cast interviews at New York Comic-Con with Entertainment Weekly...
Rachael Taylor: 11:41
You know, the relationship between Jessica and Trish is just so wonderful, damaged, complicated, loyal, there's shades of jealousy... There's so many honest, human, relatable little iterations of this relationship as the show progresses. So it's just kind of a pleasure to play something that I've never seen in a script between two girlfriends. It just doesn't fit into the traditional kind of patriarchal form of what girlfriends are supposed to be like together.
SJ: 12:12
Bonus points for calling out the patriarchy. But she's absolutely right. It's usually these male creators writing what they think relationships between women look like, while really having no clue about the complexities involved. It's always either been explicitly gay or explicitly like best friends. And this relationship does not fit into either one of those really neatly because, like you said, it's also playing with a familial dynamic. Their relationship absolutely exists on multiple levels and can be interpreted in many different ways that are all just as valid. That's kind of what I love about it, at the end of the day. I'm totally fine with the fact that Jessica and Trish never got together or whatever, because the show never lost sight of the fact that they were the most important thing about it. But the cynical part of me still kind of sees it as a little bit of queer-baiting, especially in season one, because it is so heavy-handed [with the subtext] and then they do seem to back-pedal in season two and three. They start laying down actual definitions for their relationship. It's the first time they actually call each other 'sister' - They didn't do that in the first season, they really left it open.
Bethany: 13:23
Ohh-kay.
SJ: 13:23
Then in season two, the show's like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa - No homo, bro! They're sisters." That kind of irks me a little bit, just knowing the history of shows using queer-baiting to get viewers with no intention of actually following through on exploring that type of relationship. The only time the show directly addresses the queer subtext is in season three with that scene with Dorothy...
Trish: 13:47
Mom, it's complicated and actually kind of private.
Jessica: 13:50
I think you should tell her.
Dorothy: 13:53
Please, don't tell me: You're a couple.
Trish: 13:55
What?
Dorothy: 13:56
There are much better lesbians out there.
Trish: 13:59
Mom, I'm not-- No!
SJ: 14:01
Look, I laughed, it's funny. Especially Jessica's incredulous reaction like, "Really?". Part of me appreciates that they even addressed it at all. But another part of me is kind of sad that they just wrote that whole aspect off as a joke. They knew that people were really invested in that particular reading of this relationship between Jessica and Trish and they just used it as a punch-line. That really doesn't sit well with me. It kind of has a bit of a 'gay panic' vibe to it. Do you see any queer-baiting in the way that it's portrayed?
Bethany: 14:33
Yeah, I do see that. And I see it not even just in the relationship with Jess and Trish, but I also see it in the presentation of Jessica. She doesn't represent your stereotypical feminine female character in some ways, and I think that could attract people to make stereotypical judgements about her sexuality based on how she looks or how she acts. What's so interesting about Jessica and Trish for me is that they do play with a lot of sexuality and kind of queer stuff and female intimacy, but then they both present them as extremely hetero in a lot of ways - I mean, really, pretty explicitly. Jessica is with men who are very stereotypically masculine. And Trish is too, for that matter, although I think her brief relationship with Malcolm is a little deviant from that. I think his sexuality is a little more queer or fluid. And then there's the support characters where that is much more overt - Jerry... who else am I forgetting?
SJ: 15:18
I mean, her wife, Wendy, her girlfriend, Pam, her myriad other girlfriends throughout the series... There's the cop, Detective Costa, in season two and three...
Bethany: 15:53
I have kind of torn feelings about it, because I feel like with Jessica, if she has her androgynous style and she has some of these "masculine" traits - like aggressive and violent and very confrontational - in some ways it would be falling into the stereotype of like a butch lesbian, in a way that I think would be kind of disappointing. Like, we've seen that, right? That's something that some people would expect.
SJ: 16:23
I see what you mean.
Bethany: 16:23
So in some ways, I like that she represents not stereotypical femininity, and then has a sexuality that isn't necessarily stereotypically in line with that. But then at the same time, I'm kind of disappointed that they fall back to such a hetero explicit character, when there is this subtext. I don't know if that was intentional or if it was just maybe them not knowing how to, or being comfortable with, allowing it to be fluid. It sort of seems like they didn't want it to be ambiguous.
SJ: 16:55
Yeah, I do wish that they had played more with Jessica's sexuality. It didn't necessarily have to be with Trish or anything - There are many interactions with other female characters throughout the show where there is some sexual tension or something going on. You see that with Jerry sometimes... When Rosario Dawson comes in at the end of season one as Claire, A.K.A. Night Nurse, there is some serious flirtation going on there, which I was not hating.
Claire: 17:24
If your leg gets infected, you're not going anywhere. Take off your pants.
Jessica: 17:25
I usually like a little more romancing.
Claire: 17:32
Don't we all.
SJ: 17:34
The show just never followed through on any of that. It's an interesting thing, and I don't think that there's a right or wrong answer, really. I have mixed feelings about it, and I know the fandom does too, as to whether this falls more into queer-baiting or more into just subverting our viewer expectations.
Bethany: 17:52
And I think the hype or debate or disappointment or people talking about it at all points to the larger cultural phenomenon of us feeling like we need to understand people's sexuality, or that we need to have access to it, particularly if it's not normative.
SJ: 18:10
That's a good point.
Bethany: 0:00
For me, it's okay that I didn't see all representations of her sexuality, because part of me is sort of like, "Well, what does it matter? That's her sexuality, and we shouldn't give a shit." But, of course, part of it's about representation, part of it's about accurate representation... But then there is that other piece too, of recognizing that there's something a little bit voyeuristic, in my opinion, about how much we demand answers to people's gender or sexuality.
SJ: 0:00
Right. It is this tricky line between representation and voyeurism. And that was actually something that Melissa Rosenberg, the showrunner/creator, mentioned when she was asked, "Are Jessica and Trish going to get together at some point?" She said something like, "Well, we're sort of hesitant to go down that road because I feel that it's often this prurient thing." And I think she's right, to an extent, like you're saying. But to be fair, I don't think the people she thought were clamoring to see this where who she thinks they were, i. e. a straight male audience who wanted to see two girls make out or whatever. That's not who it was. The people who were really interested in seeing Jessica in a queer relationship were women, queer and straight. Every woman I know who watched the show was like, "Yeah, I kind of wanted to see that." So I think you also need to know your audience in order to better understand why they want something, and to decide whether or not you should give it to them.It does strike me as more relating to representation in this case though, because this was never a show that was pitched for straight guys. It's very much a show that skews female and queer.
Bethany: 20:02
I think that's a really good point. And I think it also highlights that it's really important for us to remember that if you're gonna create any kind of art form, like a movie or television show, ultimately you're making decisions about representation. So what you choose to show or not show, or what character arc you follow, has a big impact. It's what people see. It's not like those things are just arbitrary or somehow organic, like people in the real world. They were fabricated in a very intentional way.
SJ: 20:35
[to listener] I'm really glad Bethany brought up this idea of the responsibility of representation. That's something that's gonna come up again in our discussion of season three. [to Bethany] Okay, we got to talk about the purple elephant in the room, obviously. So Kilgrave has kind of become an iconic villain by now. He's definitely one of the creepiest and realist villains we've ever seen, especially in the MCU. He's not some Thanos character who could never possibly exist. He's very much rooted in reality, and a lot of women in particular recognize him as that stalker/harasser/abuser that unfortunately most of us have encountered. So he really resonated with viewers as a very real threat in this fictionalized world. However, I also saw sympathy for Kilgrave, from what I would call a minority of the viewership, that I was not expecting. And they would point to things like his backstory, how his parents experimented on him as a kid. But I look at those scenes and I think, "Wow, this show is striking the perfect balance of creating this fully fleshed-out villain, and explaining his behavior without ever excusing it. I mean, this show refuses to let Kilgrave off the hook for his actions. Jessica is constantly calling him out on his bullshit.
Kilgrave: 21:54
Jessie!
Jessica: 21:56
Do not call me that.
Kilgrave: 21:56
We used to do a lot more than just touch hands.
Jessica: 22:00
Yeah. It's called rape.
Kilgrave: 22:04
Which part of staying in five-star hotels, eating in all the best places, doing whatever the hell you wanted, is rape?
Jessica: 22:11
The part where I didn't want to do any of it! Not only did you physically rape me, but you violated every cell in my body and every thought in my goddamn head.
Kilgrave: 22:22
That is not what I was trying to do.
Jessica: 22:23
It doesn't matter what you were trying to do. You raped me again and again and again.
Kilgrave: 22:28
How am I supposed to know? Huh? I never know if somebody's doing what they want or what I tell them to do.
Jessica: 22:33
Oh, poor you.
Kilgrave: 22:34
You have no idea. I have to painstakingly choose every word I say. I once told a man to go screw himself, can you even imagine?
Jessica: 22:43
Jesus.
Kilgrave: 22:46
I didn't have this - a home, loving parents, a family.
Jessica: 22:52
You blame bad parenting? My parents died. You don't see me raping anyone!
Kilgrave: 23:00
I hate that word.
SJ: 23:01
But then you have a handful of people who cite that little backstory the show gives us to incur sympathy for him. Do you see Kilgrave as sympathetic at all? Do you think the show treats him as sympathetic?
Bethany: 23:16
I mean, I basically agree with you. If we're watching this kid be abused in real-time, obviously you're going to sympathize, you're gonna be horrified. But we have this character who is an awful, murderous human being. I mean, at the point that we are introduced to him, he's committed countless acts of murder, violence, rape, and god knows what else, right? We get hints that he's used his mind control in any sorts of ways. I just feel like, "Okay, fine, give me a backstory for this awful person, but he's a psychopath, and I just don't think you can have sympathy for someone at that point. I don't think any kind of backstory somehow redeems or justifies or excuses [his behavior]. You must follow all these forums where people are talking about these things. I had no idea that there were people who sympathized with him. Because as far as I'm concerned, he's a total villain, and I don't see him as a villain who has some kind of redeemable qualities. And I do think that there are villains, in Jessica Jones and a lot of other shows, who you feel sympathy for. I never felt like Kilgrave was one of those characters.
SJ: 24:36
I mean, neither did I. But you're right that I do pay attention to fandom discussions and what people are saying on social media about this stuff, because I often find those reactions and discussions are almost as interesting as the media itself. And in this case, I'm kind of sitting on the sidelines, watching people have this back-and-forth on how sympathetic Kilgrave is, and I realized that it basically boils down to one thing, which is casting. David Tennant is such a beloved actor from especially Doctor Who, you have a lot of fans watching Jessica Jones because of David Tennant's presence. They come into the show loving him and project their positive feelings about the actor David Tennant onto his character, Kilgrave.
Bethany: 25:22
That's so interesting to me, because I can see that that makes sense. I love David Tennant as an actor. I loved Broadchurch, I'm a big fan of that show. And he, in some ways, is kind of playing the opposite of Kilgrave in that show. He has some remorse about how he's affected people's lives... Then, of course, I'm a big Harry Potter fan, so I've seen him be Barty Crouch, Jr. He's just a really compelling, fun person to watch on screen. And it kind of makes me wonder if people would view his character differently if they had chosen somebody who maybe wasn't such a beloved actor.
SJ: 25:51
I wonder, too.
Bethany: 0:00
I do wonder how [casting a familiar actor] changes the way we think about their characters. I think another good example is the actor who plays Moriarty in Sherlock. He's been in Fleabag recently--
SJ: 0:00
Hot priest!
Bethany: 26:11
[laughs] Yeah. He's been in a variety of things, and he just did a Black Mirror episode. And people like him so much, but Moriarty is the villain of Sherlock, and he's a horrible person, but people love him as a villain because they love him as an actor. So you get the same feeling of, "How are you, in a sense, rooting for or enjoying watching somebody who, at their root, is the embodiment of the most evil thing you could think of?"
SJ: 26:37
Yeah, he's another really good example. And I think for people who do have a hard time separating the actor from the character, it lessens the impact of a character like Moriarty, or like Kilgrave. By the same token, I think it was really important to cast someone as charming as David Tennant in this role, because from what I've heard from people who have had an experience like Jessica's, that tracks with their own abusers. How they present themselves to kind of lure you in - They might be enigmatic, they might be charming, they might be good-looking. And that's a trap, right? And people really responded to Kilgrave fitting that profile. He's good-looking, he's British, he's a natty dresser - all these superficially attractive qualities that a lot of people recognized in their own abusers.
Bethany: 0:00
Maybe part of the brilliance of the show is that the casting of David Tennant in that role specifically does that. It gives you a sense of wanting to like a character who you really should hate. Although the one thing I don't think it quite captures is you can know that he's done these things, but you still don't actually have a sense of experiencing it in any real way. So it does sort of complicate wanting to like him. Most of the relationship picture that you get about Kilgrave and Jessica you get in this retrospective way. That also changes how you view it, because you're not watching these things in real-time, you're watching these memories or things Jessica is blocking out.
SJ: 28:11
And memory is subjective. Yeah, there's that great scene towards the end of season one - We get a flashback of this moment where she's with Kilgrave and they're on this terrace overlooking the city. And for just a few seconds, he stops mind-controlling her.
Jessica: 28:25
I had waited so long for that moment.
SJ: 28:28
She imagines jumping off the building and riding away on a white horse. But then we realize she didn't actually do that - She's still standing on the terrace. Of course, in Kilgrave's mind, he sees this and thinks, "Oh, I gave her two seconds of freedom and she didn't run away, so she must have wanted to stay with me." And Jessica sets him straight:
Kilgrave: 28:44
You didn't jump.
Jessica: 28:44
Because I wasn't fast enough. Getting you out of my head was like prying fungus from a window. I couldn't think.
Kilgrave: 28:52
I know your face. I saw you.
Jessica: 28:54
You saw what you wanted to see.
Kilgrave: 28:55
I remember!
Jessica: 28:56
*I* remember everything.
Kilgrave: 28:59
Come down now, Jessica! Why don't you listen to me?
Jessica: 29:06
Because I don't want to.
Kilgrave: 29:09
If you don't listen to me, what is the point of having ears? Answer me!
Jessica: 29:12
To listen to someone else.
Kilgrave: 29:17
You never appreciate anything I do for you. If you can't listen, you don't need ears. Cut them off.
SJ: 29:26
She starts to do it, before he stops her.
Kilgrave: 29:28
You wanted to stay with me, admit it!
Jessica: 0:00
You admit this.
SJ: 0:00
When she pulls back her hair and shows him the scar, it's undeniable at that point. There was no consent, because she had no free will, and what he was doing to her was rape. But what we don't see, which is absolutely revolutionary in a show that is inherently about sexual assault, is the actual assault. We don't see the act of rape at all in this series. Melissa Rosenberg has said that was something very intentional from the beginning. She never wanted to show it. There's way too many scenes of sexual assault on TV, it's constantly in our faces, and it's triggering left and right for the quarter or more of people in this world who have experienced sexual assault. So Melissa Rosenberg said from the get-go, "I never want to show it. We don't need to show it in order to show the consequences of it." And I thought that was such a smart thing to do, and I so appreciated it, as someone who is so sick of seeing rape on TV--
Bethany: 30:34
Yeah, same.
SJ: 30:34
--someone who stopped watching Game of Thrones for three years because it got so rapey.
Bethany: 30:34
That was gonna be the same example I was going to use - Sensationalizing it for the sake of putting it on the screen, to be at best, provocative and at worst, just triggering and almost glorifying something like that. The decision to not put it on screen I don't necessarily think has to be a gendered thing, but I think this particular show, Jessica Jones, making that decision does feel like it was a decision made by a woman. Because there's a sensitivity to it in the way that it's constantly referenced and it's constantly in your mind, you know that it's part of the story, but it's never put in front of your face. We're never watching that scene. Yeah, there's something that's realistic and poignant about that. It really tackled that issue in the forefront, it was never trying to hide, it was never trying to pretend like that wasn't a part of her relationship with Kilgrave, but also it didn't need to constantly have it in your face for it to still be completely acknowledged.
SJ: 31:34
Totally. The show is not afraid to call a rapist a rapist. It doesn't tiptoe around anything, but by not focusing on the act of sexual assault itself, that actually requires better writing. Because that's honestly a pretty lazy tactic that we have seen over and over and over, and I think it is totally affected by gender. Women are much more sensitive to the effects of what they are showing other women in particular. I think male directors are very quick to have their female characters experience sexual assault or at least reference the fact that they have had this trauma in their past. Male directors fucking love that. You see it a lot in the form of the "Women in Refrigerators" trope, where the female character is raped or murdered or tortured or whatever, solely for the purpose of moving a male character's storyline forward. It's one of the oldest tropes in the book - You see it in the Bible, you see it in comic books, you see it in all those male revenge movies. But we so rarely see any kind of resolution for the victim. There's no exploration of what something like that does to a human being on a psychological level or an emotional one. It's so often framed as, "Here's this horrible thing that happened to this poor woman, and here's how the men in her life reacted." So most of the time you see this being done, it feels, like you say, very gross and voyeuristic. That's how it always came across in Game of Thrones, that's what happens when you have an all-male writing room. That's what happens when you have all male directors. You don't have input from women who are much more sensitive to this sort of thing saying, "Hold on, do we really actually have to fucking show this and re-traumatized people who are watching? Is that really necessary? And could we actually tell a better story and do better character work by talking about what happens after?" And I think that's exactly what Jessica Jones does.
Bethany: 33:28
I completely agree with that, and I think especially because so much of the first season in particular is about her dealing with the after-effects of it, and how it has shaped the way she views relationships and the way she approaches people. So it really isn't about the fact that it happened to her as an act, it's more about the effects that it had because it was a thing that happened to her. You know, it destroyed what little trust she had in humanity and in people she was close with. And because Kilgrave's power completely removes consent, it amplifies that feeling of powerlessness that I think comes hand-in-hand with so many experiences of sexual violence.
SJ: 34:21
Now I have also seen the argument made that not showing the rape was not the right call. Some people say that it should have gone there and just shown it explicitly, so that people could stop saying these things that we've been talking about - sympathizing with Kilgrave, or "I just really love David Tennant." I have heard some people say that that could have all been avoided if the show had just straight-up shown it and laid the entire thing to rest. What would you say to that?
Bethany: 34:51
I mean, I disagree with that. I think that is sort of along the same lines of victim blaming or victim questioning, [in real life]. When we hear about these things happening to people, there's these questions of like, "Do you have proof of it?" or "Can you tell me exactly how it happened?" As if there needs to be some kind of thing that people can tangibly see or hear to validate it. That's just my own take.
SJ: 35:18
No, I totally agree with that because when I was initially presented with that argument, I kind of doubled down on my position of "Melissa Rosenberg made the right call by not showing it." Because it's basically a giant fuck-you to not believing the victim and to rape culture in general - How we ask what she was wearing, we ask for receipts, we ask [a victim] to recount the experience in graphic detail, and even then we don't believe her. It's like, would it really have made any difference if we had seen it? I'm not entirely sure that's true, and, like we said, it would have been triggering to people to watch. I think the benefits of potentially showing that are far outweighed by the harms it would have caused. And I think this show made a stronger statement by ultimately not showing the assault itself. I can see where people who would make that argument are coming from. They kind of just want to stop hearing people make excuses for Kilgrave, and so do I! But I don't think that's the solution.
Bethany: 36:20
I think for people who also have to question, " Was sexual violence part of their relationship?" To me, that's kind of naive. Or wanting to err on the side of caution like, "Well, we don't really know. They didn't show us." I mean, how much do you have to allude to something to know that that's what it's getting at, what it's saying? I think that's pretty clear. It doesn't need to be in your face to be effective. And they did some really interesting things, even past the physical violence and the rape - They also do these flashbacks where Jessica is dressed really differently, and you get a sense of how he was forcing her to present herself as a different type of woman. And what a woman looked like for him was a very demure kind of person who he could control.
SJ: 37:11
Right! That great scene we were talking about, where she's in the yellow dress...
Bethany: 37:14
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking of.
SJ: 37:15
Yeah, that's true! Jessica Jones would literally never wear yellow or a dress of her own free will. That, to me, was more effective than any sexual violence that we could have been shown.
Bethany: 37:27
This is a really interesting piece too that ties into representations of femininity in the show: I think if you had removed Trish's character from the show and you had this arc where Jessica, when she was with Kilgrave, was being forced to wear these dresses and looking extremely stereotypically feminine, and then you see her character after she's not under his spell anymore (and she, of course, dresses more androgynously, she's kind of a badass), your conclusion might be that there's something kind of wrong with that more traditional feminine dress. But I like that Trish is there, as a character who was still really, really classically feminine in the ways that we often understand it, because I like that the show doesn't leave you thinking that to be strong, you have to dress like Jessica Jones, or as a woman you have to reject traditional femininity. Because Trish doesn't, and Trish is still an extremely powerful and effective character. And whether it was intentional or not, I thought that was a really cool piece of the show that was kind of important for some of the gender representations.
SJ: 38:32
I never even thought about that! That's such a good observation. Okay, the moment we've all been waiting for: Season one finale, A.K.A. the most life-giving thing I have ever seen on my TV screen. To set the scene for you, just in case it's been a while: A few minutes before the big showdown, Jessica and Trish are in Trish's car making a plan on how to deal with Kilgrave.
Trish: 38:53
I'll wait here. Just text me.
Jessica: 38:56
You won't know if I'm a minion of evil.
Trish: 38:59
Well, then we need a signal. Something you would never say, like "sardines" or "pickle juice"... You say it, you're still you.
Jessica: 39:11
Something I never say. Like, "I love you." [car door opens and then shuts]
Trish: 39:23
[quietly] That'll do.
SJ: 39:26
That comes into play in a big way, just a few minutes later in the final showdown between Jessica and Kilgrave. I've never been more nervous watching anything than I was when I watched the scene at the docks. Kilgrave has taken Trish under his control, he's sexually assaulting her right in front of Jessica, he's about to kidnap her and sail away on a boat...
Kilgrave: 39:45
she will slit her own throat. It's the ultimate contingency.
SJ: 39:58
The stakes couldn't be higher. He's about to get away with everything he's done. Jessica only has this one tiny chance of convincing Kilgrave that he still has control over her, so she can get him close enough to save her best friend and take out Kilgrave once and for all.
Kilgrave: 40:13
Oh god, it's true, isn't it? You would let me take your beloved sister? It's finally over...You're mine now. No more fighting, no more--no more of these uglydisplays. You'll be with me now. Look, after a while, however long it takes, I know-- I know you will feel what I feel! Let's start with a smile.
SJ: 41:07
She looks directly past him, right at Trish and says ...
Jessica: 41:11
I love you.
SJ: 41:14
And then! [Kilgrave yelps, music intensifies]
Jessica: 0:00
Smile. [neck snaps, body thuds on pavement]
SJ: 41:19
I literally gasped, had to rewind the scene to make sure I had actually seen this happen, and then I was just on my feet cheering.
Bethany: 41:36
[laughs] Yeah.
SJ: 41:36
I mean, line 'em up, knock 'em down: the safe word coming into play, the "smile" motif being turned back around on Kilgrave, the sound of his neck snapping?! Just boom, boom, boom. Oh, my god. Do you remember your reaction to the finale?
Bethany: 41:50
Oh, yeah. Throughout that whole first season, I was shocked at how quickly and just without a second thought, Jessica would beat somebody up or Kilgrave would have people commit violence. Because I don't think we're used to seeing things happen at that speed, right? Usually there's some kind of suspense that builds up, which in some ways is unrealistic, compared to how it would happen in real life. So there's this added shock factor of things just hitting you in the moment they're happening. You don't get prepared for it at all. I was so excited when I watched that scene. You knew it had to resolve, in some way, but you didn't know how it was exactly going to happen. But you know the season is ending, the show is called 'Jessica Jones', you know that she has to triumph. But she really, really triumphed. I almost wanted to, like, cheer and cry at the same time--
SJ: 42:47
Yeah!
Bethany: 42:48
--because it was just... It was exciting.
SJ: 42:51
Completely. I mean, I felt the same way. I was on the verge of tears of joy, and I have never had that reaction to a TV show before. Never seen anything like it. And it was so well-earned. You know, we feel like we've been on this journey with her, and she's been suffering so long, and this fucking guy has been in her head, causing her all this pain... To have her just silence him once and for all, and in THAT way - The whole season he's been telling her to smile and mind-controlling women to smile at him and fall in love with him. And what does she do right before she snaps his neck? She says, "Smile." And it's like [sings choir note]. What a satisfying moment, as a woman. We are all so sick and tired of being cat-called, street harassment, being told, "Smile, you'd be prettier." That was such a fuck-you to this stuff that we have to put up with. There was so much catharsis in that scene... I'll never be over it!
Bethany: 43:48
Yeah, even if it was a little bit almost cliche, just in the sense that "stop telling women to smile" is such a buzz-phrase now. Even though it really was that, it was still so satisfying to see. I didn't care that it was maybe a tip to that. And again, I feel like it fits in with the fact that it is still a comic book, and we expect there to be some of these kind of quippy phrases, right? I think that's part of why people like comics so much is because the dialogue is fun. And the sense of relief - Kilgrave's character hangs over you the whole first season. As soon as you realize who he is and what he has the capability of doing, I was so anxious knowing that he could make somebody powerless in an instant. And realizing that he was finally once and for all dead - especially because we so often don't get that finality with comic book characters, right? Like, we see them in a crash and then their hand moves or something, right? So to see him really dead, I was just really relieved. And I just let go of that tension.
SJ: 44:53
Yeah, completely. I honestly wasn't sure that they were going to kill him off in the first season because David Tennant is so beloved. I thought maybe they would keep him around. And honestly, I'm really glad they didn't because it felt like his time had come. I didn't want him hanging over Jessica anymore, because, like you said, it felt like he was hanging over us, and it was so stressful! Honestly, we deserved closure, and she deserved closure, so I'm really glad that they didn't try to extend his stay on our screens, just because it's a well-liked actor. I really appreciated that they knew when it was his time, and they called it, and let her do her thing in a very satisfying way.
SJ: 45:30
[to listener] I wanted to wrap up season one with a special guest. If you remember in the last episode, I mentioned an essay called "How Jessica Jones Saved My Life." Well, that article was written by Reuben "Tihi" Hayslett, a queer writer, activist and storyteller living in Long Beach, California. I reached out to him for this podcast to see if he'd be so kind as to read that article for us, and he graciously agreed.
Reuben: 45:51
This is Reuben "Tihi" Hayslett, reading an article that I wrote for The Mary Sue, published on December 15th, 2015 titled "We Don't Need Another Hero: How Netflix's Jessica Jones Saved My Life." Like you, I'm addicted to Netflix. So when Jessica Jones started appearing on subway ads during my daily commute, I knew I was watching. What I didn't know was that Jessica Jones would save me in ways I didn't know I needed saving. You see, Jessica and I (we're on a first-name basis) are both survivors of intimate partner abuse. For over a year in my early twenties, I was powerless to escape my attacker. That is, until, like Jessica, suddenly I wasn't. It's been nine years, and I still didn't know that I had undiscovered triggers until my first binge-watching session. Jessica Jones explores, more than anything I've seen, the true terror of intimate partner violence. It's the mind control. But even further, Jessica as a character explores her fear, shame and baggage more authentically than even I have. If you know a survivor, you know, mind control. When my abuser told me not to go anywhere, I froze. I recalculated. That's how much power he had over me. In the beginning, our relationship was mind-numbingly easy. He decided what we'd eat for dinner, where to go on weekends, he even picked out the clothes I wear every day. In the beginning, his charisma and confidence were hypnotizing. He was like a choice drug, or a favorite drink I could order up, kick back and get lost in, which made that first blow to my face all the more startling. Even immediately after, in those first few seconds that it took to register, his will was more powerful than mine. A simple, "I'm sorry. I'll never do that again" turned into, "It never happened. You did something wrong." I don't know what a one-off encounter with mind-control feels like, but I trust the experiences of the Kilgrave support group. My life, though, was more like Jessica's, where being controlled, no matter how you feel about it, becomes the new normal.
Reuben: 48:20
Months before my escape and his last attack, I tried to run. My coworkers at the time, helped me develop a plan: wait for him to leave work first, even if that meant being late, then come to work, cash my check, take the first cab to the airport, buy a one-way ticket West, doesn't matter where, and start over. I kept counting through my $100 bills, Googling flights to Los Angeles or Texas, but at the end of the day, there I was, still at my desk, confused. How could I not get up? Why can't I leave? Instead of boarding a plane, I came home, confessed, took my licks. A couple of months later, when I finally told him I was done with him, he stabbed me. Life is over or beginning when you leave your abuser. Where Jessica has cheap whiskey, I have 40 ounce malt liquor. Where Jessica counts street names, I count old college classmates who made me feel safe. I've been struggling like Jessica for nine years with this idea of heroism. Hers is super-powered, fueled with strength and not-quite flying. Mine is political activism, social and economic justice. It's not possible for Jessica or I to rewrite history, to undo what was done to us, but it is possible to try, when we can, to do better for others. I work in activism because I want to prevent the system from creating the same kind of man that abused me, in the same vein that Jessica fights for Hope's innocence. But let's not get confused. Neither one of us is a hero. The first time I spoke out publicly about my abuse was at a Take Back the Night rally. A good friend pulled me aside after and told me that she too had an experience but couldn't talk about it. I was her hero, she told me. But what that felt like in the moment was nothing like a hero. It was shame. Talking about your abuse doesn't change that it happened. And helping others doesn't change that it happened to you. I never get to be the same again, not since him and all the times he hit me. For years, I thought I was okay with that. But Jessica taught me better and gave me tools that, in hindsight, I always knew were there but never thought to try.
Reuben: 50:59
Spoiler alert: Jessica at one point goes back to her attacker in a house that he set up for her in hopes of rekindling whatever relationship they had. An outside observer could say that this move was unwise, and a keen outside observer could say that Jessica's act with selfless, that she was trying to save others. Both of these are wrong. Jessica needed to go back for herself. She did what I could never think to do. Meet her attacker on open ground, as much as equals as possible. The harsh side of abuse is that it's always about power, about mind control. You can never really be equal, but Jessica bucked up and faced the kinds of fears that I still have nightmares about. Watching Jessica confront her attacker honestly, without shame or reservation, was like an exorcism for me. More than all the therapy sessions I sought, Jessica Jones allowed me to mentally play with the idea of closure in ways I never thought possible, and in ways that I'm sure she never thought possible - You know, she has her whiskey and I have my forties. I tried for years to move on, only for a Netflix series to glaringly and embarrassingly show me that all I've ever done was cope. Heroes, Jessica and I aren't. What makes a hero is the central emotional arc of the show. We're given lots of examples, good and bad of that: We have Malcolm versus Simpson, Hogarth versus Trish.. But everyone is flawed because at the core, the hero is a facade. It's a role we play.
Reuben: 52:50
I hate being called brave, especially in reference to my abuse. I've attempted to date men who used "brave" as a term of admiration, a compliment to throw out before the clothes come off. But brave would have been leaving my attacker the first time he hit me. Brave is resisting mind-control, and even the super-powered, super-sexy Luke Cage couldn't do that. In my experience, brave is what comes after, not what you do in the days following your last attack, but in the years. Brave is the idea of opening yourself up to love, when the first person you loved tried to literally kill you. Brave is what I wish to be, and maybe, hopefully, can become, because of what Jessica taught me. Jessica never knew she was immune to Kilgrave, (sorry, that's another spoiler alert) and neither did I until I was watching the show. We become immune because our bodies, not our minds, not our hearts, build up a resistance. I'll confess that sometimes I still display really odd behavior while sleeping next to someone. Sometimes I'll unconsciously insist on not being touched, not being near anyone. This has happened to one-night stands as well as men that I've been in years-long relationships with. It's my body, unconscious yet somehow still mind-controlled, trying to immunize.
Reuben: 54:25
So Jessica wins the day, not by being a hero. She doesn't sacrifice herself. She doesn't triumph in a punch-trading battle. Yet somehow, more than even watching King Joffrey's death, Kilgrave's death became cathartic and necessary, even in its quick unceremonious end, and I'm starting to understand why: Our abusers don't need to see us live happy, productive, rewarding lives, and they don't deserve a thousand cuts either. What they need - what we need - is for them to end. For Jessica, that's murder. For me, that's something I'm still left to discover. I need the ghost of my attacker to end. Nine years has been far too long. I need a release and I don't know how to get it. But Jessica has been more than a role model for me. She's become a beacon of the kind of hope that only somebody traumatized can understand. Jessica faces her past with all the ugliness, with all the danger. She doesn't have a plan, she isn't always sober, but she stands and she faces her attacker. She says to Kilgrave, "You raped me." And one day, [takes a deep breath] I will, too.
SJ: 55:58
Reuben's fiction and nonfiction has appeared in the Splinter Generation, the Oregon Literary Review, the Surreal South Anthology 2011, and Translit magazine. His debut collection, Dark Corners, received a coveted star review on Kirkus. We'll be hearing again from Reuben in our last episode, to reflect on what the show means to him all these years later.
SJ: 56:17
We've talked a lot about abusive relationships in this episode, and I want to take this moment to speak directly to listeners who may be in quarantine with their abuser right now. A number of reports have come out recently, indicating that there has been a steep increase in domestic violence, and I just want to offer some resources for anyone who is dealing with that right now. If you're in a dangerous situation, please reach out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, @ndvh or call 1-800-799-7233. You can also chat with someone at thehotline.org. We'll take a quick break and be right back to talk about season two. [contemplative music]
SJ: 57:17
As Bethany and I got into season two, we realized we didn't have as much to say about it as we did about season one. And not because it wasn't as good or we didn't like it as much, but just because so many of the things that we loved about the first season were still true for the second, and we didn't feel the need to rehash all that. I just rewatched season two again in quarantine, and I was reminded of how much I really liked it. It perfectly bridges the gap between season one and season three, dealing with the same elements, just within a different context - Questions like, "Can I control this monster?" "Am I a killer?" "What is a hero?" It also continues to be prescient in ways, like the subplot involving Trish confronting a director who assaulted her when she was a child actress. All of that was being written well before the MeToo movement really exploded. The two things we did end up talking about a lot were Jessica's mother, Alisa, as the antagonist and the season two finale.
Bethany: 58:12
Jessica's mother is a character that I do feel like I had some sympathy for at some points. She goes through this really traumatic accident where she loses two of her family members - her husband and her son - and then kind of effectively Jessica too, because she becomes this monster. She's in the hospital for a number of years, and by the end of the season, we see her lose her other current love interest, Dr. Carl. So she's dealing with all of these extremely traumatic things. She's also portrays different representations of impulses or struggling with demons, wherein she has these outbursts. And she too is a murderer, she's extremely violent, she's done some really awful things. I don't think she's all good. I didn't like her at times, I felt like she was just a bad person, or a bad character even, but I definitely had more sympathy for where she was coming from. I felt like she had moments that were more redeemable, and I think Jessica's attitude towards her mom was almost like a reflection of the redeem-ability of her character. We didn't see Jessica have that at all towards Kilgrave (which I think is what we would expect), but we do with her mother. And I think not just because it's her mother, but because Jessica is always trying to pick to make sure that innocent people don't get hurt. She doesn't know what to do with her mother, because she doesn't know where her mother falls on this scale of innocent to guilty.
Jessica: 59:40
I don't know what to do. What's the right move here? Because I don't know.
Trish: 59:45
There's only one thing you can do - You gotta put her down. You're the only one powerful enough to do it. If Carl had finished what he started--
Jessica: 59:57
[scoffs] Are you serious?
Trish: 59:59
If I was powered, I wouldn't hesitate.
Jessica: 1:0:01
Bullshit. How many times have you forgiven Dorothy?
Trish: 1:0:05
Dorothy is not a mass murderer.
Jessica: 1:0:07
But that's not who my mom is.
Trish: 1:0:10
Jess, if you don't do it, how many other people are gonna die trying?
SJ: 1:0:15
That was, for me, the most interesting crux of season two in general - Trying to figure out is this person really even still her mother? How much of her mother is still there? And does that mean anything, in the face of everything she's done and all the people she's killed and will continue to kill? And, you know, Alisa is another really good example of female rage: Over the course of the series, you have Jessica, really in season one, you have Alisa in season two, and then Trish in season three. It's this great trifecta of ways in which different women express their anger. And Alisa is very much the uncontrollable rage incarnate. Even Jessica can barely get through to her.
Jessica: 1:0:55
Look at me.
Alisa: 1:1:01
[long pause] I almost put your face through the floor. Where's your sense of self-preservation?
Jessica: 1:1:06
You're still my mother.
Alisa: 1:1:07
No. I just have her voice. Carl is all I've got.
Jessica: 1:1:11
Then you're a goddamn idiot.
SJ: 1:1:13
For most of the season, Alisa kills anyone who's a threat to her or will expose her. She very much wants to remain free and will do whatever it takes to do that. Meanwhile, Jessica and pretty much everyone around her is convinced that she needs to be put away. She's simply done too much damage, and she's not controllable in a consistent way. By the very last episode though, that's essentially been reversed, with Alisa now coming to realize that she is a liability to everyone around her, including her daughter. But Jessica has started to become attached to the idea of having her mother back, and this hope of running away together and being able to keep Alisa in check. In the climax of season two, after being on the run, with the police closing in on them, Jessica and her mother have a final conversation on this ferris wheel at an abandoned amusement park that Jessica's family used to go to when she was a kid.
Alisa: 1:2:05
"Hero" isn't a bad word, Jessica. It's just someone who gives a shit and does something about it.
Jessica: 1:2:10
Well, I don't. I don't give a shit.
Alisa: 1:2:12
Yes, you do. You do. It sucks and it hurts, but you do. You are far more capable than I ever was. Maybe I don't have to be amazing. Maybe I just made you.
Jessica: 1:2:32
No, I won't-- [gunshot, body thuds]
SJ: 1:2:37
Jessica looks out of the moving ferris wheel car to see Trish down on the ground, holding a gun. She leaps over the side, enraged.
Trish: 1:2:54
No!
Jessica: 1:2:55
You killed her!
Trish: 1:2:56
Before she could kill you! [sound of impact, Trish cries out in pain] The police would have shot you both. I had to save you! [suspenseful music] Jess! Jess...Jess....
Jessica: 1:3:31
[voice almost a growl] Run.
SJ: 1:3:44
Trish really did that! I mean, she kept talking about it, but she literally got up out of that hospital bed and shot Jessica's mother in the head! That was pretty shocking to me.
Bethany: 1:3:54
I almost feel like it was a necessary plot choice that Trish be the one to make that decision for Jessica. Because I think the alternative for that would be that Jessica has a period of time where she picks her mother and is with her mother, but because we come back to Jessica's actions every time being about her sense of morality, being there for innocent people, being a protector as much as she's begrudging about it, I don't think that would have been a sustainable resolution. And I think that the show didn't have the ability, or wasn't going to give us a whole season of her struggling with that. But I think inevitably, regardless of what she chose in the second season at the end, I think ultimately she would have been the one to somehow do that to her mother. But the plot, out of necessity, has Trish do it, one, because it's interesting for the relationship between Jessica and Trish, but also because it it closes what, in my opinion, eventually would have been kind of the same conclusion, but taking that responsibility away from Jessica.
SJ: 1:4:58
I agree, it felt inevitable. And not only is it seriously foreshadowing where Trish is headed next season, it's also such a clear example of the way Trish has all these different motivations to do the same thing. Rachael Taylor talked about this in a Build Series interview at the beginning of season two:
Rachael Taylor: 1:5:16
In the first couple of episodes, you know, Trish really pushes Jessica to dive into her very painful past. And I think there's a little bit of betrayal in that. It's something Jessica would rather not look at. She's been through some incredible trauma, and I really push her to go after that. And I think Trish has some-- and this is what I love about the the way Melissa writes: she always writes characters that want more than one thing at the same time. I think Trish really is trying to help Jessica heal, and I also think Trish has an ambition for personal gain.
SJ: 1:5:56
I think that's a really good observation that pretty much all the characters in this show have more than one coexisting motivation, but especially Trish. And it's so clear in this scene where she shoots Alisa that she does want to save Jessica, she does want to be the hero, she does want to remove Alisa from the equation (and perhaps from getting in the way of Jessica and Trish's relationship), and she also wants to spare Jessica having to do that herself. All of these things can be, and I think are, true for Trish in this moment.
Bethany: 1:6:30
Jessica's mother, for me, was a stand-in in some ways to develop Trish and Jessica's relationship more, like you said. Because her mother comes back not really as her mother as Jessica remembers it, and so she has this brief moment of hope, right? Jessica's entire persona that we meet in the first season is a loner. She's lost her whole family (or her whole given family, I should say), and is sad and shutdown about it. And then she has this brief moment in season two, where maybe her mother is gonna be back and she can have this life that was taken away from her. So in some ways, Trish doesn't really take her mother away as much as she takes away that hope for Jessica to no longer be the person she was in the first season. Trish destroys that for her.
SJ: 1:7:19
And that's maybe a more unforgivable thing.
Bethany: 1:7:22
Although I think we, as viewers, already knew that there was no hope. That's part of the reason why they had Dr. Carl end up killing himself in the lab explosion - he was the hope for us that Jessica's mom could potentially be cured, right? So when you take away his character, you realize that Jessica is stuck with this person who is very flawed, has these uncontrollable fits of rage and murder. I think Trish knows that because she was there at the laboratory, which is another thing that maybe allowed Trish to shoot the mother is that there was no foreseeable hope that she was gonna get better.
SJ: 1:8:01
And I think Jessica knows that too subconsciously, even though she's not really able to articulate it for quite a while. A couple episodes into season three, Trish... not really apologizes, because she still believes it was the right thing to do, but she says, "I wish I didn't kill your mother." And Jessica says, "I wish she wasn't a mass murderer." That's the closest Jessica Jones is going to get to saying, "I forgive you." But even right after Alisa dies and her blood is still drying on Jessica, first she looks like she's gonna beat the shit out of Trish, but she doesn't. She tells her to run, so that she can take the blame or the responsibility from the police of having put her mother down. To me, that was a really clear indicator that she also knew in her bones that it was the right call, and this was kind of inevitable. I see that as even the first steps to forgiveness for Jessica, even though she will not say it for what we find out is a year later.
Bethany: 1:9:00
That scene with her on the ferris wheel with her mother, right after Trish shoots her, and she's in that little car thing, and her mother is dead across from her, and the police are on their way... That was probably one of the scenes actually out of the entire series that has stuck with me the most. Because Krysten Ritter's acting was incredible in this scene, but also for Jessica , we're seeing her in this devastated, vulnerable state. When the cops find her, she's like curled up... The idea of being stuck in this little container with this person who you love, but they also were this really awful person in some ways, and you just dealt with significant loss and trauma... Yeah, that scene really stuck with me, and I think was probably one of the most powerful scenes for me of the whole series.
SJ: 1:9:55
I can see that. It was definitely something I found myself mulling over for several days afterwards. It was really heavy. And again, like the season one finale, the staging of that scene is so precise, so as to hit you with maximum emotional impact - The fact that Jessica and her mom are on this ferris wheel from her childhood, talking one minute, and then the next it's Jessica and her dead mother's body... The layers of tragedy on top of nostalgia here are just...oof. You're right, it's devastating.
Bethany: 1:10:30
We don't see on television that moment of death with a lot of main characters, when it's that sudden. We either miss the moment of death and see them a few moments after, or you see it happen slowly in some way, or you just hear about it. We see it [here]. And it's really shocking and traumatic. This is a totally random show to tie it to, but one of those last scenes in Breaking Bad, where we see--
SJ: 1:11:03
I haven't finished Breaking Bad. I've only seen a couple episodes. Sorry!
Bethany: 1:11:07
Okay, I'm not going to say anything then. You have to watch Breaking Bad!
SJ: 1:11:12
Yeah, I know. I know.
Bethany: 1:11:13
Krysten Ritter's in it. That was how I was familiar with her first, I saw her in that show, where she has a semi-significant role.
SJ: 1:11:22
Right.
Bethany: 1:11:22
Anyway, so we'll go back to--
SJ: 1:11:24
So the last season of Breaking Bad is similar? We don't have to get into spoilers, but people who have seen Breaking Bad will know what you're talking about maybe?
Bethany: 1:11:30
Yeah, we don't have to get into it or whatever. But basically, seeing this character, who you don't know if you're ready to say goodbye to, and then [they die] and it is a tragedy and a total devastation for the main character... Yeah, it affects you. It's like when you're reading a good book and you lose one of your favorite characters. You know, there's a sense of loss. And Jessica's mother wasn't one of my favorite characters, but the impact it had on Jessica kind of was [the equivalent].
SJ: 1:11:59
[to listener] We really feel the weight of Alisa's death, continuing into the next season. At the beginning of season three, Jessica is still kind of in mourning, and we find out she hasn't spoken to Trish in over a year. Join us next time for the conclusion of our Jessica Jones series, when we break down all of season three: Sallinger, Hellcat, that finale, which...we both had a lot of feelings about. Next week we laugh, cry, rage and say goodbye to the show that meant so much to us. If you'd like to share your thoughts on Jessica Jones, you can still do that. We'd love to hear from you. Just record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@popculty.blog, or tweet at me @popculty. I'd love to include your voice in the next episode. Many thanks to Reuben "Tihi" Haylsett for sharing his writing with us. You can find his book Dark Corners available on Amazon. Thank you again to L'orchestra Cinematique for letting us use their great Jessica Jones main theme cover throughout this series. Check out their album Geek Tunes available on Amazon. If you've been enjoying the show, please consider chipping in just a few dollars to help us reach that goal. Go to patreon.com/popculty. Your support keeps the show ad-free. The show is produced and edited by yours truly, SJ Palm. All clips used in this episode are property of Marvel and ABC Studios, used herein under the Fair Use clause of Section 107 of the Copyright Act. Interview clips used in this episode are courtesy of their aforementioned, respective owners. Links to the full interviews can be found in the show notes. Until next time: Support women directors, stay critical, and always demand representation. [Jessica Jones theme plays out]